Another lovely day in the South Island of New Zealand, fast becoming our new Must Revisit country. We arrived in Akaroa at about 7am, passing through the Heads and into a long but reasonably narrow inlet. There was another cruise ship ahead of us, Sea Princess. Akaroa is the port of call nearest Christchurch for cruises these days since the terribly earthquake that devastated that city a few years ago. It's a lovely little place, maybe only 400 permanent residents, living in some really gorgeous chocolate box cottages dating from Victorian times. The French found Akaroa and decided to settle it in 1838 but when the first settlers arrived, they found the British already there with the Union flag flying. Undeterred, they settled there anyway and Akaroa has a definite French influence in the names of streets, businesses, restaurants etc.

We had to tender ashore as the ship could not get all the way up the inlet to Akaroa and there's no cruise pier there anyway. I suppose the tender ride was about 30 minutes, quite long. We were the first group off as we were on a tour called the Tranzalpine Experience which was a long day and they wanted us to get a good start. Firstly our coach wound its way around the very indented coastline of bays and through the volcanic hills surrounding Akaroa and Christchurch. Absolutely gorgeous scenery. Then the land flattened out to the largest flat plain in South Island full of sheep and cattle farms. We stopped at one for coffee and refreshments and what a lovely place it was. There was a wonderful display of country crafts, a museum of old farm and life objects, and a demonstration of weaving and spinning the local merino wool. The family are currently rebuilding the farmstead which was totally destroyed in the earthquake. It was once a wonderful, rambling Edwardian brick house and we saw pictures before and after.

Then the coach started to ascend up into the Southern Alps taking us up to Arthur's Pass. The Alps run almost the entire length of South Island including down to the glaciers we saw in Milford Sound. A fantastic trip with breathtaking views in every direction. We were very lucky with the weather again today. Bright and sunny. Blue skies and some white cumulus clouds. The journey to the Pass took about 2 hours and when we got there the Tranzalpine train was waiting for us. It was a much more modern train than the Taieri Gorge one, with a massive open viewing compartment on the back and very large glass viewing windows through the carriages. Unfortunately the A/c was broken and so the big glass windows rapidly turned the carriages into sauna baths. As Bob and I were directly adjacent to the open viewing car, we spent a lot of time out there. The actual train trip was amazing. Incredible panoramas, lakes, rivers, snow covered mountains…. We were served a lovely cold lunch and given some champagne. Not as generously as yesterday!!!!

The train trip took us down for about 2 hours back to Wollaton where our coach was waiting for us. We then enjoyed more wonderful scenery all the way back to the ship. Just a fantastic day and we are now determined to come back in a couple of years and really spend some time exploring both islands of New Zealand.

Nice dinner and a very good comedian in the show lounge. The captain announced that the norovirus was lessening and seemed to be under control and also that there is a big cyclone heading our way which he is trying to route around. So, after Wellington tomorrow we are taking a different route to Samoa which means going up the west coast of North Island rather than the east coast. Hope that works!